What have we been Eating?

 When you go to the store to purchase your groceries for the week, it isn’t a normal thought to inspect all the food you put in your cart. But should you have been? IN anticipation for the discussion on our standards class next week about food, I decided to look into what types of standards issues there are now. The article in particular that caught my interest was from July 2013. The article talks about ramping up the inspection of foreign foods being imported into the United States. Imported foods account for 15 percent of the nation’s supply and less than 2 percent of that gets inspected! Mainly this 2 percent is focused on beef and poultry, thank goodness. However as I think about all the other items that I might buy that could have been imported may have never been inspected.

                While I’m sure that there is some sort of standard in order for the resources to even be qualified for transport, I wonder how our standards that domestic company must adhere to; compared to that of the rest of the world or more specifically the major food export countries. I do have some confidence in the world in that no one is trying to slip crappy food into the system. It is also noted that with the amount of food trade that happens between countries, there would be no way to inspect it all. It seems as it is a catch 22 scenario. The FDA can attempt to pass stricter rules but it seems that by the end the process becomes so drawn out that it ends up getting dismissed.

                Statistics show that contaminated imported foods sicken 48 million and kill 3000 per year. This seems like a large enough number to me that we should be doing something about it. It seems like the FDA is fed up with it too and are going to be taking on the daunting task to change such a large industry. As we saw in the auto industry standards, when you try to institute new standards on a system so large and so hard to inspect every element, this will likely take years to improve the actual quality of food being imported. I think that the FDA may be getting a little help from the public in a sort of De Facto way with the new kick in better eating habits and health awareness. People seem to be more concerned about the food they are buying and keeping away from the more processed foods. There is no better time than now while Americans are putting forth the energy to improve their life style to create a higher standard for our foods.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fda-unveils-rules-to-make-imported-food-meet-us-standards/2013/07/26/659d4bf0-f4b0-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4_story.html